RAWALPINDI: Six attendants of a patient were arrested and another nine were booked on the charges of assaulting four doctors at the Holy Family Hospital (HFH) on Tuesday.

The brawl between the doctors and attendants broke out over the shifting of two patients who had been brought to the HFH for a CT scan from Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH).

The shifting of the patients back to BBH was delayed due to the absence of the relevant doctor and ambulance, which caused unrest among their attendants.

Police said six of the suspects involved in the brawl with doctors had been arrested while efforts were underway to apprehend the rest.

The FIR was registered on the complaint of HFH medical superintendent Dr Shahzad Ahmed.

In his complaint, Dr Ahmed said the attendants of the a patient Mohib Ali, who had been under treatment in the neurosurgical ward of the hospital, fought with a doctor over a petty issue.

He said they misbehaved with the doctor and used abusive language towards her, and also pushed her to the floor and dragged her. Dr Ahmed did not mention in his complaint what had provoked the attendants.

He also alleged that when Dr Asad intervened and advised the angry attendants to behave sensibly with the doctor, he was physically assaulted. In addition, one of the attendants attacked another doctor with an iron rod which caused injury to his right eye. Dr Amjad was punched by another protester, which caused bleeding from his ear.

The complainant claimed that Dr Asad remained under attack until he was rescued by his colleagues.

In response to the incident, senior doctors decided to go on strike but later called it off after the medical superintendent lodged an FIR against the attendants.

However, the Young Doctors Association (YDA) Rawalpindi chapter went on strike and refused to treat patients in protest against the behaviour of the attendants.

Hundreds of patients visiting the Holy Family Hospitals, particularly the outpatient department, suffered greatly because of the strike. However, doctors continued to treat patients in emergency departments.

Sensing the gravity of the situation, Dr Ahmed from HFH paid a visit to the hospital and asked senior doctors to attend to patients.

The young doctors, mostly house officers, postgraduate trainees and medical officers working at allied hospitals, gathered outside Rawalpindi Medical College’s (RMC) New Teaching Block at Holy Family Hospital (HFH).

Later, addressing a press conference, YDA leaders Dr Shoaib Ahmed and Dr Rana Azeem announced that they would continue the strike till the acceptance of their demands, which include the provision of security to doctors - particularly female doctors.

They said the YDA wanted legal protection for young doctors serving in public sector hospitals.

They said that CCTV cameras should be installed and rapid response teams activated in all the government-run hospitals, and attendants who misbehave with doctors should be brought to justice.

On the other hand, patients urged the government to take action against hospital staff who misbehaved with patients.

In a recent incident of a brawl between doctors and attendants, a rapid response force was constituted to deal with such incidents at HFH.

As part of the force, the hospital management had planned to install 20 CCTV cameras in and around the emergency department.

The basic purpose of such steps was to avoid such incidents in the future and resolve matters within the hospital instead of referring them to the local police.

The hospital authorities believed that the CCTV footage would help the administration get to the bottom of a dispute between attendants and hospital staff.

Published in Dawn, October 3rd, 2018